Question: 3 people can paint 6 walls in 48 minutes. How many minutes will it take for 6 people to paint 8 walls? Round to the nearest minute.
Solution: We know the following about the number of walls $w$ painted by $p$ people in $t$ minutes at a constant rate $r$ $w = r \cdot t \cdot p$ $\begin{align*}w &= 6\text{ walls}\\ p &= 3\text{ people}\\ t &= 48\text{ minutes}\end{align*}$ Substituting known values and solving for $r$ $r = \dfrac{w}{t \cdot p}= \dfrac{6}{48 \cdot 3} = \dfrac{1}{24}\text{ walls painted per minute per person}$ We can now calculate the amount of time to paint 8 walls with 6 people. $t = \dfrac{w}{r \cdot p} = \dfrac{8}{\dfrac{1}{24} \cdot 6} = \dfrac{8}{\dfrac{1}{4}} = 32\text{ minutes}$